Nick Walkley will defend his PhD thesis – Portal Propagations: Reproduction, Reception, and Rediscovery in the Life of the Urnes Portal

Program:

11.00 Trial lecture: (TBA) 
13.00 Defence

Attend the lecture and defence online
 

Thesis abstract: 

The northern portal of Urnes Stave Church stands preserved within the monument overlooking a remote West-Norwegian fjord as the seemingly frozen memory of a historical past. Yet, as Portal Propagations shows, this heritage icon is continually extended through the circulation of its hyper-reproduced image into a multiplicity of fluid and shifting receptions. The 11th-century ornamental entrance was reused and spoliated within the 12th-century building façade and following its 19th-century rediscovery and preservation the portal’s detachment and fragmentation was continued through circulatory reproduced objects. As part of the research project Provenance Projected: Architecture Past and Future in the Era of Circularity, Portal Propagations explores this monument through extended boundaries of architectural history as an archival and historiographical study of its paintings, drawings, photography, plaster casts, carvings, and in its contemporary iconicity in the design of tattoos, coins, passports, and commercial packaging. Through this assemblage of reproductions, the study asks questions of preservation practices and museum representation, examining the effect that the portal’s prolific reproduction has had on the monument as a whole, and the way it is read through its extended image.

Portal Propagations looks at changing attitudes and techniques in processes of reproduction, and asks how the portal might be further reproduced to become reassociated with its lost original architectural context. It is guided by an ethnographic study of the pioneering practice of Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Preservation, who explore the closing gap between an object and its reproduction through new imaging technologies and a specialism in returning the digital recordings to a physical state. As a direct comparison, the study also reflects on the experimental archaeology performed by Treets Mester (Master of the Wood), as a parallel project run by Fortidsminneforeningen that has produced a processually authentic copy of the Urnes Portal. Making use of digital scan data, this study also experiments with methods of reproduction drawn from these studies as an extension to the scholarly reconstructions of the lost 11th-century church. From its historical perspective, the study casts a glance to the future in examining the potential for rediscovering the Urnes Portal as part of lost contexts. Through this scrutiny of a single artefact, Portal Propagations examines how monuments are made, how they continue to grow through their circulated images, and how changing attitudes to reproductions can offer a refreshed view of originality.
 

Biography:

Nick Walkley holds a BArch in Architecture from the Manchester School of Architecture (2009) where his dissertation “Towards Digital Ornament” was subsequently nominated by for the RIBA Presidents Medals. From 2011, he worked as a professional musician and completed a MA in performance at the Royal Academy of Music, London (2014). A deep-rooted fascination for shared North Sea culture led to a move to Norway in 2016, where he continues to explore interests in medieval architecture, preservation of cultural heritage, and digital humanities.   
 

Supervisor: 

Mari Lending 
 

Adjudication committee: 

1. opponent: Dr. Olivia Horsfall Turner
2. opponent: Professor Helge Jordheim
Co-ordinator: Professor Jonny Aspen